The PN Guideto everything Twitter

What isTwitter?

Technically Twitter is a microbloggingplatorm that asks its users to answerone simple question – ‘What are youdoing?’ – in 140 characters or ewer. Inreality it is ar more than that. Despiteits basic premise and the strict characterlimit, which means each message needs tobe concise, Twitter has developed into avibrant conversational tool.Those who use it value it as a way torapidly share and discuss inormation,opinions, news and content with a wide-ranging group o ollowers. Businessesare using it as way o extending theircustomer service, keeping interested partiesup to date on their latest news and givingexclusive deals to their Twitter ollowers.The benets o using Twitter are obviousor personal use but many companies arealso using Twitter in a variety o ways.Twittter can be used to:

•Complementexistingcustomerservice•Buildrelationshipsandnetworks•Directpeople’sattentiontogoodthings•Listentowhatpeoplearesayingabout

you – both good and bad

•Respondtocriticismandpraise•Breaknewsfasterthanothersources•Conductsurveys•Helpwithbusinessdevelopment,if

your prospects are online

•Createabackchannelateventsfor

instant eedback

Types o update

@Replies

Twitter messages can be addressed to aspecic person by using the @ symbolalong with their name.

Example:“@porternovelliHey!What’sall

the uss about this Twitter?”

Itisthe@Repliesfeaturethathas

enabled Twitter to become primarily aconversation tool. There are three settings

for@RepliesforwhenyouuseTwittervia

the webpage which can be ound underthe notices tab on the account settingspage. You can chose to:

Seethe@Repliestotheonlypeopleyou

are ollowing - this means you will only

seean@Repliesinyourtimelineifyouare

ollowing both the person sending and theperson receiving the message. This is thedeault setting or Twitter.

Oryoucanseeallthe@Repliesfromthe

people you are ollowing, even i they aredirected at people you are not ollowing.

Oryoucantakeoutall@Replies

rom your timeline, which means youwould never a see a reply rom anyoneyou are ollowing.It is also worth noting that the Twitter

webinterfaceonlypicksup@Replies

intended or you i they are at thebeginning o the message.

Direct messages

Twitter’s ‘DM’ unction communicatesprivate messages between users. Thesemessages are sent to the recipient’s directmessage inbox and are not published tothe Twitter stream or everyone else tosee. You can send a DM to anyone whoollows you but you cannot send a DMto a person you ollow, unless they alsoollow you back. This is a measure put inplace by Twitter to try and prevent usersbeing spammed.Example: “d porternovelli So can youtell me o the record how to use theDM unction?”

Gettingstarted

Signing up or an account is simple andtakes two minutes. Simply visithttp://twitter.com and click the ‘join theconversation’ button. You will then beasked or a username, your real name andemail address. Once these are suppliedyou’re ready to start tweeting.There are several dierent ways to postupdates to your Twitter prole. You canpost updates directly rom the Twitterwebsite or you can also post to yourTwitter prole using a mobile phone or athird party application. While unctionalityo the Twitter website is quite basic, oneo the reasons or its success so ar is thatit allows sotware developers to createthird-party clients, such as Twhirl andTweetdeck, which can be used to reneand aid your Twitter use. There are alsodierent types o update that you canmake, depending on whether you aretalking generally, responding to one ormore people or sending a private message.